Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's famed collaboration began in 1939, when the pair worked together on the WWI drama Spy in Black. Throughout the Second World War, the duo collaboratively wrote, produced, and directed a series of pro-British propaganda films, which were released to wide acclaim. They contributed to the war effort through such films as Contraband (1940) and 49th Parallel (1941). However, by 1943, their work became less propagandistic: The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp landed them in trouble with the British War Office for its critique of military leaders, angering Winston Churchill personally.
That year, the pair formed Archers Film Productions, incorporating their informal duo, The Archers, into a production company. Unlike most production companies at the time, Archers Film Productions touted the fact that it was not beholden to studios or outside producers, emphasizing Powell and Pressburger's equal contributions to the creative process by crediting them jointly as directors, producers, and writers of each of their works. The collaboration was driven by what Pressburger outlined in 1942 as "The Archers' Manifesto," delineating the goals that would underscore their joint creative process:
"1. We owe allegiance to nobody except the financial interests which provide our money; and, to them, the sole responsibility of ensuring them a profit, not a loss.
2. Every single foot in our films is our own responsibility and nobody else's. We refuse to be guided or coerced by any influence but our own judgement.
3. When we start to work on a new idea we must be a year ahead, not only of our competitors, but also of the times. A real film, from idea to universal release, takes a year. Or more.
4. No artist believes in escapism. And we secretly believe that no audience does. We have proved, at any rate, that they will pay to see the truth, for other reasons than her nakedness.
5. At any time, particularly at the present, the self-respect of all collaborators, from star to prop-man, is sustained, or diminished, by the theme and purpose of the film they are working on."
In this "Manifesto," the radical spirit that drove Powell and Pressburger to depart from the production of wartime propaganda translates into the desire to work outside the established norms of the film industry at the time. By challenging the privileging of escapism in classical narratives, the foregrounding of the producer as an arbiter of the work, and the pressure to be influenced by forces outside their own creativity, the pair departed from the working conditions that characterized the Hollywood studio system (and, indeed, most major film productions the world over) at that time.
The principles outlined in "The Archers' Manifesto" can also be seen throughout The Red Shoes, especially in the film's treatment of Lermontov. While Lermontov is initially celebrated as a brilliant artist, his overwhelming need for creative control leads to Vicky's ultimate demise, especially as he pressures her to forego her love life in order to focus solely on dance. The figure of the overbearingly passionate artist could be read as a critique of directors who seek to concentrate creative power solely within their own hands, or as a censure against the producers in the Hollywood studio system who controlled films' content to keep it in line with their financial interests. The Manifesto's disapproval of escapism is also evident in The Red Shoes, as the film's bleak ending forecloses the possibility that viewers will treat the film as an escapist fantasy. This is also evident as The Red Shoes does not hesitate to broach difficult topics, such as the valuation of artistic merit versus romantic fulfillment that it frames as Vicky is torn between Julian and Lermontov.
